Author: Aleiah
Compiled by: Asher
Original title: How to systematically track high-win-rate addresses on Polymarket ?
One address on Polymarket rolled over $35,000 to $442,000, achieving a 12.6-fold return. Notably, this position was established hours before the major market upheaval, and the trades were largely realized before the news spread to mainstream channels. This was not an isolated incident; before news of the "Venezuelan attack" was even made public, three addresses had already positioned themselves and collectively profited $630,000 from the same event.
If such transactions occurred in traditional financial markets, people would easily associate them with information asymmetry. However, in prediction markets, all fund flows and position changes are recorded on a public blockchain, eliminating the possibility of hidden accounts or private transactions.
Public disclosure does not mean the absence of gaps. The key is not whether transactions can be seen, but whether one can extract truly valuable signals from massive amounts of data.
Every transaction on Polymarket is public data.
Many prediction market participants still view Polymarket as a traditional betting platform: monitoring odds, choosing a direction, and betting on the outcome. However, Polymarket's underlying structure is completely different from DraftKings or ordinary sports betting. All transactions occur on-chain, and the flow of funds, position size, and entry and exit times are all publicly verifiable. The operational paths of those addresses with the most accurate judgments and the most astute timing are not based on hindsight speculation, but are recorded in real-time on-chain.
Polymarket's API is also open. Transaction records, market data, and historical transactions can be accessed directly by anyone without any access restrictions.
Therefore, the difference lies not in who can see the data, but in who can glean meaning from it. On-chain information is public, but what is truly valuable are the wallets worth continuously tracking and the ability to identify changes in their behavior before prices fully reflect these changes.
What are the characteristics of a genuine "insider address"?
It's important to emphasize that not all profitable trades imply insider information. Some traders possess solid research skills, while others rely on quantitative models and algorithmic advantages. However, when profits are repeatedly correlated with specific behavioral patterns, certain structural characteristics distinct from "luck" can be observed.
Category 1: Combination of new addresses and unusually large bets
It's unusual for a wallet that's only been created a few days ago and has very few transactions to suddenly invest a large sum of money in a low-liquidity niche market. Especially in the absence of public catalysts, large-scale concentrated buying often carries stronger informational implications.
Category Two: Highly Vertical Trading Areas
Some addresses do not operate across markets, but instead focus on a specific niche market and maintain a stable and significant win rate within that field. They do not spread across multiple sectors such as crypto prices, elections, and sports, but concentrate their firepower on a single theme, and their position decisions are more decisive.
Category 3: Abnormal changes in position size
When an address that has consistently placed medium-sized bets suddenly and significantly increases its position in a particular market, this behavior often signifies a change in the strength of its judgment. Position size itself reflects an attitude, and a sudden shift in size usually reflects an upgrade in information or belief.
Category 4: Overly precise time selection
While occasional early positioning can be attributed to coincidence, if an address repeatedly completes its position building hours before major news announcements, and in a highly consistent direction, this timing advantage cannot be simply explained as luck. One instance might be random, but repeated occurrences are more likely to demonstrate an informational advantage.
How to systematically screen potential "information advantage addresses"
Step 1: Analyze Polymarket ranking performance
You can start by looking at the leaderboards on Polymarket Analytics (link: https://polymarketanalytics.com/traders ), sorting them by 30-day profit and loss, using recent stable profitability as the first filtering criterion. Focus on wallet addresses that have consistently shown positive returns for 30 days, a win rate higher than 55%, and whose total profit significantly exceeds their total loss. Simultaneously, it's necessary to confirm that their trading is concentrated in markets with real liquidity, rather than low-volume predictions of events with no participants.
The goal at this stage is not to directly determine whether they possess an information advantage, but rather to establish a watchlist of companies with consistent profitability. A stable profit record forms the basis for subsequent behavioral analysis.
Step 2: Analyze the position structure in specific events
After initial screening, you can delve deeper into specific trading events. Enter an active prediction market and view the list of top holders for that event. Polymarket publicly displays the addresses with the largest current holdings; these large positions often represent stronger judgment.
The key is not whether a particular address hits a high-risk, high-reward target in a single instance, but whether its behavior is consistent. If a wallet repeatedly appears on the top holdings lists of multiple important events, and these positions are established before the market has fully priced them in, then this recurrence itself constitutes a signal.
A single successful bet may be accidental, but repeatedly making large-scale investments in the early stages, consistently moving in the same direction, and having the results validated often indicates that the judgment system has a stable advantage.
Step 3: Analyze trading behavior and entry timing
After selecting candidate addresses, it is necessary to further trace their on-chain transaction history, focusing on analyzing the timing of position building, position structure, and holding rhythm.
First, observe the timing of the entry. If the purchase occurs several hours before the official news announcement and is repeated multiple times, the time advantage itself becomes an important variable; while entering the market after media reports are more likely to be simply following the information.
Secondly, analyze the position building methods. Experienced traders typically build positions in batches and gradually increase their holdings, while wallets with strong information judgment often complete concentrated positioning quickly in a short period of time because their window of opportunity is limited.
Furthermore, pay attention to the holding period. Some high-quality addresses choose to exit midway through the market trend, rather than waiting for the end of extreme volatility, indicating that their goal is to lock in the main trend rather than to chase marginal profits.
Finally, observe their trading scope. Addresses that are highly vertical and focus on a single sub-sector in the long term are more likely to develop a stable information advantage; addresses that frequently operate across different sectors are more likely to rely on market sentiment rather than judgments specific to a particular sector.
Advanced address tracing strategies
After mastering the basic screening methods, what truly differentiates us is the further analysis of the details of financial behavior.
First, it's crucial to focus on exit behavior, not just entry timing. Addresses with an informational advantage often not only position themselves in advance but also proactively reduce their holdings before potential negative news emerges. When a large address that has maintained stable holdings for a long time suddenly and significantly reduces its holdings without any obvious catalysts, the information content is often higher than its initial purchase behavior. Especially when the reduction in holdings reaches a significant proportion, this change itself is a signal.
Secondly, wallet clustering analysis can be performed using on-chain data. The connections between addresses are not entirely untraceable. Similar funding sources, similar gas usage patterns, and consecutive transactions occurring within a very short period can all reveal relationships between addresses. Many seemingly "new" accounts can often be traced back to a long-active old address through two or three fund transfers. Tracing fund flow paths helps identify new, potentially high-quality accounts before the market notices them.
In addition, attention should be paid to unusual trading volume changes in less popular markets. If a market with a small daily trading volume suddenly experiences a large inflow of funds without any public information, this structural increase in volume often indicates that some market participants have already taken action. Analyzing the specific locations driving the changes in trading volume can help build a new watchlist.
Finally, on-chain behavior can be cross-validated with publicly available external information. The so-called "pizza index" has been used to infer potential military operations based on unusual changes in order volume at pizza shops around the Pentagon. Similarly, flight tracking data, social media activities of key figures, and publicly disclosed schedule adjustments can all provide corroboration or reverse verification of on-chain position behavior. The correlation between on-chain fund flows and real-world signals often strengthens the reliability of judgments.
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